The Senate Committee on Public Accounts, led by Senator Matthew Urhoghide, said the probe of the budget office, followed the 2016 Auditor General’s Report which is currently being considered by the Committee.
Budget Office has since failed to appear before the Senate Committee to explain the circumstances surrounding the payment of N19 billion to four agencies based on verbal directive by its Director General in 2015.
The Committee expressed disappointment that the budget Office ought to be the number one on the list of the agencies expected to respond to the Auditor General’s query, but it failed to appear before the Senators.
The Auditor had stated in a 2016 report that “four MDAs were paid the sum of N19 billion from the service wide vote without the approval of the Honourable Minister of Finance. Some of the payment were made on a purported verbal directive from the Director General.”
The Financial Regulations 301 and 302 states that “recurrent expenditure is paid from CRF and no rxpenditure may be incurred except on the authority of a warrant issued by the Minister of Finance. The Director General should provide evidence of approval from the Ministry of Finance for these expenditures or recover the sum of N19 billion from benefiting MDAs.”